Frodsham Nub News aims to support our community, promoting shops, businesses, charities, clubs and sports groups.

We will be profiling some of these businesses and organisations regularly in a feature called "Up Close in Frodsham."

Today we caught up with Matthew Martin and Pippa Bellis, founders of Cheshire Brownies.

While for the owners of many small businesses, the coronavirus lockdown was synonymous with catastrophe, for Matt and Pippa, it stood for opportunity.

Matt and Pippa had just moved into their new home in Frodsham when lockdown hit, postponing the start of Matt's new job in wedding catering and meaning that, for the first time in his career, he could not work as a chef.

However, as all restaurants and cafés closed, Matt and Pippa began to receive baking requests from family and friends.

Matt's catering career spans over 16 years, beginning in Mitchell and Butcher's in Stone, Staffordshire, where he became a fully qualified Head Chef at just 29.

He later began working at Granville's Brasserie, an à la carte restaurant in Stone, where his signature dish, "Tigers Cry", was featured in the local newspaper and was extremely popular with locals.

According to Pippa, "he has always baked truly delicious brownies and desserts, using fresh ingredients from scratch, and this is what gave us the idea of doing home-baked deliveries during lockdown."

With that, Cheshire Brownies was born. After investing in some extra kitchen equipment, Matt and Pippa launched their home-baked business, and began delivering to customers all around Frodsham, lifting people's spirits as they were forced to shut themselves away from the world.

"As Matt is Level 3 qualified in Professional Cookery, he upholds a strict regime when it comes to health and safety, risk assessment and prevention of cross contamination," they explain.

Meanwhile, Pippa's job in financial services makes her the perfect person to look after the admin and communications side of the business.

Since it was founded, Cheshire Brownies has grown its menu to a huge range of different bakes and flavours, including popping candy and jellybeans, which, according to Matt and Pippa, "was a huge hit in the school holidays."

"We had a very strange experience in the kitchen when we discovered that, if popping candy is heated up to a certain temperature, it will pop randomly all by itself. Spooky!" they add.

"By far our most popular request is our Orange Brownie," Matt and Pippa tell me. "We believe this is down to the fact that we use real Seville oranges for every batch, including all of the fresh orange juice and zest to give the brownie its natural flavour.

"However, we have to say that peanut butter brownie is our personal favourite. Peanuts and chocolate are a big hit in our house!"

"We have lots of plans for Cheshire Brownies, including many exciting new Halloween and Christmas flavours, which Matt is already working on.

"We will be holding a stall at Frodsham Market very soon and be providing postal deliveries, so it's no problem if you are out of the area: you can still enjoy our products!"

Before they begin putting their future plans into action, Matt and Pippa want to thank their friends and customers for helping to get Cheshire Brownies off the ground.

"We really couldn't have done this without such amazing support locally.

"We believe it is very important to support local businesses as much as possible and our local community has been incredibly helpful in a very difficult time, so thank you to everyone!"

You can find Cheshire Brownies' bakes in Courtyard Tearooms at Castle Park, where you can also enjoy live music and events, as well as the beautiful artwork in the Art Centre gallery. As Matt and Pippa say: "We are very lucky to have such fantastic venue on our doorstep."

You can also order directly from Cheshire Brownies using any of the following contact details:

Facebook @cheshirebrownies

Email: [email protected]